30 hours of childcare for foster children application form

Children in foster care will be able to receive 30 hours of childcare, if the foster carers meet a set of eligibility criteria and it is consistent with the child’s care plan. You must speak to your Supervising Social Worker to see if you meet the criteria before completing this form.

Once you and your partner (if you have one) have completed and signed this form, you must supply evidence of paid employment outside of your fostering responsibilities; this can be in the form of copies of pay slips or employment contracts.

The completed form and your employment evidence must be sent to your Supervising Social Worker who will check the form and forward onto the Headteacher of the Virtual School for Children in Care to be agreed and countersigned.

If your application is successful, it will be sent to the Education Support Service to process. You will receive an email from email: [email protected] confirming eligibility and containing your unique 11 digit 30 hour code beginning with ‘400’. You must take this code to your chosen Early Years and childcare provider, who will validate the code and reserve a 30 hours place for the child.

Your code can be used at any Early Years and childcare provider that is registered to offer Early Education Funding in any English Local Authority, although there is an expectation that this will be at a provider who had a Good or Outstanding Ofsted rating. To search for registered childcare providers in City of York Council area, please visit our childcare webpage.

Your code will need to be renewed by the local authority every 3 months, and we contact you by email to ask you to confirm that your circumstances have not changed and you still meet the criteria.

This form is only for foster carers. If you're applying for your own children use the childcare service.

Find further information about childcare or for more information contact the Education Support Service by telephone: 01904 553880 by email: [email protected].

Criteria for 30 hours childcare for foster children:

City of York Council is the Corporate Parent of the child; if the corporate parent is another local authority you must contact them for an application form
the child is eligible for 3- and 4-year-old funding (term after their third birthday), or will be in the next 10 weeks
it's in the child's care plan that attending a childcare setting for the additional hours is in their best interest
all foster carers in the household are working outside of fostering, or if a couple, at least one carer is working and the other carer is in receipt of a qualifying benefit;
the foster carers are EEA or Swiss national and they have EU Settled Status (EUSS) or are in the process of applying for or appealing EUSS and they meet the other eligibility criteria
the foster carers must live in England
the foster carers are working, but earning less than £100,000 net per year or;
non-foster parents in the household must meet the standard criteria for a 30-hour code:
- working and earning the equivalent of 16 hours per week at the minimum wage/national living wage;
- earning less than £100,000 per year; and
- EEA or Swiss national and they have EU Settled Status (EUSS) or are in the process of applying for or appealing EUSS or have a visa allowing them to have access to public funds

If your partner is not a foster carer, please refer to Section 4 where you'll find the eligibility criteria.